In a wireless communication network, network nodes exchange data using network communication protocols. Internet Protocol (IP) is an example of a network communication protocol that facilitates packetized data communication between network nodes. A wireless communication device, or “access terminal (AT),” can be used to transmit and receive IP packets via a variety of different wireless network interfaces such as IS95 CDMA, CDMA2000, WCDMA, CDMA 1xEV-DO, GSM GPRS, WCDMA GPRS, IEEE 802.11(a), IEEE 802.11(b), IEEE 802.11(g), Bluetooth, and other interfaces. A wireless network interface may provide access to network nodes, e.g., web servers, email servers, or messaging servers, residing on an IP network such as the Internet. The traffic transmitted and received by an AT may be originated by or destined for the AT. Alternatively, the traffic may be forwarded by the AT on behalf of another device attached to it, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), notebook computer or the like.
Some ATs may support more than one of the wireless network interfaces. In addition, within a given coverage area, more than one wireless network access point (Um) may be available to serve packets transmitted or received by a particular communication application running on the AT. For example, the coverage area may provide a number of long-range wireless network access points based on various communication standards, as well as short range wireless network access points based on other standards such as wireless local area networking (WLAN) standards. Accordingly, an AT may be equipped to select different wireless network interfaces to serve, via the available network access points, packets associated with particular communication applications such as web browsing, email, messaging or the like.